


Hooded Fox

by RenkonNairu



Series: One Sky Continuity [6]
Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Archery, Case Fic, Fae & Fairies, Future Fic, Gen, Hunting, Robin Goodfellow - Freeform, Robin Hood - Freeform, Tracking, crossbows
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:26:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23320162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenkonNairu/pseuds/RenkonNairu
Summary: Barron Battle decided Warren is long over due for learning a particular skill. But he can't teach him from behind bars. Luckily, someone else appears and is willing to do Warren the favor... for a favor in return, of course.
Relationships: Barron Battle & Warren Peace, No Romantic Relationship(s), Warren Peace & Original Character(s)
Series: One Sky Continuity [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1306427
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	1. Well Met By Street Light

**Author's Note:**

> Due to reasons, I did not feel like continuing "From Out of Town" at this time.

“I take it you still haven’t found him.” Battle observed, one elbow resting on the narrow counter between them, the other hand holding the phone that allowed them to speak through the bulletproof glass that separated the inmates from their visitors. 

Warren just stared at his father from the other side. Looking unamused and exhausted. “I have spent all my time, breaking up a gang-war between two rival Mobs, taking down an international human trafficking ring, convinced a counter fitter to switch careers and accidentally created a new drug lord, and inadvertently crowned a mafia prince. Not being able to find one old man in the woods is the least of my problems.” 

Battle offered his son a little sympathy. If the prison would allow visitors and inmates to touch, he would have given the younger man an affectionate little hair tousle. “I know the mundane police work multiple cases at once, but that’s their job and they have the luxury of being able to devote the majority of their time to it. Supers –especially superheroes, who have to work day jobs to support themselves- should really only work one case at a time. So they don’t stretch themselves too thin and burn out like you are now.”

And Warren didn’t just have a day job. He was also going to school to learn a trade that he could turn into a better day job later. Unlike most superheroes whom only had to divide their attention between two things –work and hero’ing- Warren had to divide his attention between three –work, school, and hero’ing. But that wasn’t why so many things went so wrong for him. 

“It was all the same case.” Warren informed him. 

Battle blinked at him. That was a lot going on in just one case. 

“Let’s just say the Song and the Luen Triads both had their hands in a lot of pies.” He informed the older man. 

Leaning back in the plastic chair, Battle studied his son. “You didn’t try and take on an international Chinese mafia all on your own… did you?”

“No, no, no.” Warren was quick to reassure his father. Then immediately confessed to the lie. “Well, yes.”

“Warren Battle! I thought I raised you smarter than that!” His father barked with mingled disappointment and concern. 

“It’s fine! It’s fine!” He held up his hands, in an almost defensive gesture, to spite the fact that there was a layer of bulletproof glass between them and Battle hadn’t moved. “Only the Luen wanna kill me –well, they wanna kill Phoenix, but Phoenix can’t be killed- so that’s fine. And the new leader of the Song is my old buddy Sid. You remember my friend from Wātis Academy, Song Sidao, apparently, his grandma was the Boss of the Song Triad here in Maxville all along.”

“Song Mei-Lin.” Battle nodded. “Mama Mei. She had her goons bring me to her before you could have your first sleepover, ya know. Wanted to know what kind of people her grandson was associating with, maybe intimidate me a little bit. Good times, good times.” 

Warren just glared at his father. This seemed like something he felt his father should have told him before finding out on his own. Especially since Battle knew Warren chose to become a hero, not a villain, and as a hero would be fighting the mobs –including the Chinese Triad. “Well, Sid’s running the Song Triad now.”

“Aw, good for him.” Battle chuckled to himself. 

Warren groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. Sometimes, Dad’s view of a situation was so different from his own that it felt like they weren’t even speaking the same language. 

“Anyway, you’re looking a little rundown.” Battle changed the subject. Leaning forward, he braced one hand on the glass to get a better look at the younger man. Normally olive skin was looking a bit pale. Hair, stringy and limp. Dark circles under the eyes from exhaustion. “How’ve you been eating?”

“I’m a culinary student, Dad.” He reminded the older man. “I eat more than I should.” 

Warren was always tasting things. Every class, at every step in the process. Taste, needs more this. Taste, could use some extra that. Taste, should lower the flame and just let the flavors blend. Final presentation, delicious! Could use some extra spice. Not eating was not Warren’s problem. 

“I meant, have you been… eating?” This time, when Battle asked the question, he placed an extra amount of emphasis on the last word, implying that it carried more meaning than just the literal. 

“Oh!” It was a true testament to just how exhausted Warren really was that, that wasn’t the first thing he thought of when his father asked that. “Eating! I mean… that artisan butcher you sent me to isn’t exactly cheap, Dad, and Mom and I aren’t made of money.”

Battle frowned, not understanding. “I left you a trust fund.”

“And I’ve been using it.” Warren assured him. “School’s expensive. School’s way more expensive than when Mom was in college. Hell! Schools way more expensive than it was just ten years ago! Education has basically become an extortion racket to rival the Mob by this point.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Battle pouted at the idea of the money he left for his child before being incarcerated wasn’t enough. Or, perhaps he was pouting because Warren was not spending it in the way he intended for his son to spend it. Battle certainly never continued any kind of formal schooling after high school. He went straight from Sky High to being an international supervillain-assassin. A very lucrative field. When Barron Battle and Mara Peace married, they agreed that they would raise their children neutral and let them choose a side when they were old enough. That being said, villains did not have nearly as many money problems as heroes did –on average. 

But this was not a constructive avenue of conversation and they were only given one hour every two weeks to talk. Battle did not want to spend it arguing. He decided to change the subject instead. 

“You need to learn to hunt.” He announced. “If buying what you need is too expensive. You remember I used to go hunting pretty regularly when you were a kid.”

Warren nodded. Family camping trips every summer when he was off from school. They would head up into the North Hills, Dad would bring his crossbow and a quiver of bolts and walk out of camp. He’d be gone most of the day, but he always came back with a deer, or a bunch of rabbits, or a coyote, or something. Every fall around Thanksgiving, Dad would head out and come home with a wild turkey. Dad hunted a lot, and he was good at it. 

Warren was not. Warren didn’t even know how. 

“How’re you gonna teach me to hunt when you’re locked up in here?” He asked. 

“I know a guy.” Battle said matter-of-factly. “He’s a little weird, but I trust him enough to teach my son how to hunt.”

“Uh-huh.” He was imagining some other supervillain. One that played hopscotch with the line between ‘villain’ and ‘neutral’ like his father sometimes did. Some quirky old man that would spend half the time he was supposed to be teaching on trying to convince Warren that he didn’t actually want to be a hero. “That’ll go over real well. ‘Hi, I know I’m a hero and seeing as how you’re a friend of my Dad’s you’re probably a villain, but could you teach me this highly dangerous survival skill?’ Yeah, that’ll go great.”

“You won’t have to approach him.” Battle assured his son. “I’ll do the asking and if he agrees, I’ll send him to you.” A pause. “Not to your home. I’ll have him meet you on neutral ground.”

“So, what, I’m just supposed to wait around until some mysterious stranger pops up out of nowhere and is all like, ‘please to meet ya, ready to learn to kill your own- -meat’?”

“Okay, well, he’s not gonna phrase it like that.” 

…

The sound of tires screeched through the night air, to the accompaniment of a chorus of sirens. Blue and red police lights flashed, streaking past windows at high speeds. 

The chase started in South Side and had made it halfway through Downtown Maxville already. What had started as an ironically old-school bank robbery, turned into a high-speed chase. Complete with costumed superheroes getting in on it. 

Highlighter turned up his brightness rapidly. So fast, it was more of a flash than a glow. He temporarily blinded the driver. 

Liquidator melted onto the street, making the asphalt slick so the van’s tires couldn’t get any traction.

The Lieutenant picked the van up and lifted it a few feet in the air before it could spin out and injure someone or damage any property. 

And Phoenix… was also there. 

“This was fun, us teaming up like this.” The Lieutenant beamed at his friends, still holding the van full of bank robbers. “We don’t do this nearly as much as we said we were going to.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Phoenix felt a little left out. He hadn’t done anything. “Could you let them down so we can arrest them?”

“Oh. Sure.” Smiled the Lieutenant, like the friendly, cheerful, primary colored boy scout that he was. He set the van back down on the street. 

Behind his mask, Phoenix only rolled his eyes. Using his powers, he melted the lock off the back of the van and yanked the doors open. 

He was greeted with the barrel of a sawed off shot-gun pointed square in his face! 

Moving fast, Phoenix ducked low. Moving out of line of the shotgun, and at an angle the wielder would not be able to compensate for quickly. One hand lancing out, he grabbed the wrist holding the trigger, his other hand, resting on the top of the gun where the shells were loaded. 

“Do you know what happens to a person’s hand when ammunition goes off while they’re holding it?” Phoenix asked, voice soft and calm. Almost gentle. 

Outside the van, the Lieutenant winced. He knew what happened to a person’s hand when the ammo in the gun they were holding went off. Two years ago, before they were real heroes, back when they were still just heroes-in-training, they all saw exactly what happened to a person’s hand when a gun burst in their hand. 

It was just after a supervillain caused a big earthquake that nearly leveled the city. They were trying to get to the villain’s earthquake machine and some security guys placed themselves between the team and getting to the bad guy. Flamebird, Phoenix’s mother (now retired) grabbed one of the guy’s guns while he was still holding it, used her pyrokinesis to super-heat the gunpowder in the clip, and the whole thing just burst. All that was left of the guy’s hand was a pulpy burned stump with a shard of bone sticking out. 

Just the memory of it made the Lieutenant cringe. He did not need to see a repeat of it. 

And, apparently, the bank robber in the van didn’t want to learn the hard way because the Lieutenant heard Phoenix say soothingly, “You made the right call.”

Two men and one woman filed out of the van, their hands on their heads. 

A uniformed officer wearing a hijab approached to cuff them and read them their Miranda rights. It was then that one of the robbers decided she didn’t want to be arrested after all. 

She dove back to the van, grabbing for the discarded shotgun. But before she could even lift the weapon, an arrow came from out of nowhere and shot her in the shoulder. 

She collapsed to the pavement. One hand going to the wound. Eyes wide with shock. 

The police surrounding them all went down, crouching behind their squad cars. Guns up and eyes searching for the shooter. 

The Lieutenant placed himself between the uniformed officer in the hijab and the direction the arrow came from. 

“There!” Phoenix just barely caught a glimpse of a hooded tunic darting down a fire escape into an ally. 

“I didn’t see-“ Began the Lieutenant. 

But Phoenix was already running after the shooter. 

He followed the figure through the dark ally, seeing only a silhouette. Not particularly tall. In fact, they were on the shorter side of average. Wearing hood over their head, a tunic that fell just above the knees, tights, and elf-boots. Yes, elf-boots. Little short boots with curled cuffs, and pointed toes. 

As they reached the end of the ally, the light of a passing car illuminated more of them and Phoenix saw that they were dressed in shades of green and brown. A hunter-green tunic and acorn-brown hoes. 

Nearing the end of the ally, the shooter jumped up onto the fire escape of the opposite building and climbed up to the roof. Not wanting them to get away, Phoenix also scaled the second building. 

They were halfway across the roof by the time Phoenix got up there. Moving quickly. Not so quickly as to imply they might be a speedster. The hooded archer was not running anywhere near as fast as Speed did back in school. No. But they were moving faster than the average mundane without superpowers could run. And when they reached the edge of the roof, they jumped. Sailing clean over the full width of the street, and landed on the roof of the next building on the opposite side. A quick runner and a far jumper. Definitely a super of some variety. Not a speedster, but definitely someone with physical attributes greater than the average ‘mundane’ human. 

Getting a running start to follow him, Phoenix put everything he had into a jump to try and cross the wide street and keep following the shooter. He started to fall about halfway across the distance, and had to use his fire to propel himself the rest of the way. Placing his hands at his sides and aiming behind himself and down, he shot the rest of the way across the street rather like a human rocket. 

His body collided with the side of the building and he had to use the façade to climb the rest of the way back up to the roof. 

For half a second it looked like his quarry had been waiting for him. Watching to see whether or not he could make the jump, or if he was going to fall into the street and get run over by a couple of cars. But the moment Phoenix had his feet on the solid insulation-sheeting of the roof, the hooded archer took off running again. Laughing as he did so. As if he were having fun. As if this were some kind of absurd and dangerous game to him. 

At the edge of this roof was a flagpole and the shooter used it to slide back down to the street. 

Phoenix followed them and they were back on the ground again. 

The shooter turned a corner. 

But when Phoenix turned that very same corner, they were nowhere to be seen. 

Even if they were very fast, Phoenix should have at least seen them off in the distance. But they were gone. Like, vanished!

“Well, that was a merry little chase.” 

Almost jumping at the voice, Phoenix spun around quickly. 

There was the shooter. Behind him. Like, right behind him. Standing very close. Too close to have an unknown super at your back. 

Dressed in a green tunic with brown stockings. The hood drawn low over his face, obscuring his identity. But, and maybe the dark was playing tricks with his eyes, or maybe the stranger was wearing a very life-like mask under that hood, but it looked like he had the pointed muzzle of a fox under that hood. Red fur, whiskers, pointy canine teeth, even a cute little black nose that looked wet like a dog’s nose. 

“What are you?” Phoenix asked instead of the more usual ‘who are you?’

“How rude!” And the Hooded… Fox sounded genuinely insulted. “I came all this way-“ he gestured vaguely “-you Americans are all so ill mannered.”

Behind the whited out lenses of his mask, Phoenix’s eyes narrowed. The Hooded Fox’s accent was foreign, but Maxville was one of the most diverse cities in North America, in the top three right after New York and Los Angeles. They were a city of accents, and Phoenix didn’t know where to place this one. He sounded like he could have been an actor in one of the Lord of the Rings films, or in the series adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire that HBO was teasing, so… some kind of Western European? England, maybe, or one of the associated isles?

That didn’t matter at the moment. That information could be figured out when they processed him. This guy shot a suspect in police custody. Phoenix had to bring him in. The rest could be figured out later. 

“Bad manners or not, you discharged your weapon into a group of heroes and police.” Phoenix informed him, reaching into his utility belt and pulling out a pair of handcuffs. “I’m gonna have to ask you to come with me, and come quietly.”

The Hooded Fox laughed again. That same laugh as before. One of true humor. As if they were just playing a game and he was having fun. “Well, what you lack in manners you make up for in amusement.” The Fox nodded under his hood. “Yes, I think I can teach you.”

Phoenix paused, suddenly thrown off balance. He lowered the hand holding the cuffs and took an unconscious step back, suddenly suspicious. “Teach me what…?”

“Why, hunting, of course!” Cried the Hooded Fox as if this should not have needed explaining. “Tracking quarry, looking for trail signs, staying down-wind, how to shoot, what to aim for. As I understand it, this is something that a person of your… circumstance needs to know, and being a ‘modern superhero’ in this charming little ‘concrete jungle’ of yours has left you with few opportunities to learn.”

Staring at the Hooded Fox, Phoenix just sputtered something incoherent. He cleared his throat, trying to collect himself. “Did my father send you?”

The Fox laughed again. “Don’t be absurd. No one ‘sends’ me. I go where I please. It just so happens that it pleases me to do you a favor, and –maybe- some time in the near future, you’ll be so inclined as to do a favor for me in return.”

“You’re a supervillain.” Phoenix concluded. It was not hard to figure out. His father said he would send someone to teach him how to hunt, here was someone offering to teach him how to hunt. His father was a supervillain, so this guy also had to be a supervillain. And he wanted to have a superhero indebted to him so that he could get away with some villainous plot he was planning for the ‘near future’. 

“I prefer the title ‘Noble Outlaw’.” Announced the Hooded Fox. 

An ‘outlaw’ was still a criminal, and a criminal with superpowers was a supervillain. But Phoenix had never heard of any supervillain that looked like –or went around dressed like- an anthropomorphic fox in a green tunic. “What’s your name?” 

“Oh, so many…” Sighed the Hooded Fox. 

“It doesn’t matter.” Phoenix announced. “I’ll find out when you’re processed. Hooded Fox, I’m placing you under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney-“

“Oh, well that won’t do.” The Hooded Fox shook his head under his hood. 

Phoenix took a step closer to the hooded super.

And the Fox burst into a cascade of oak leaves. 

“What the fuh-“ Phoenix exclaimed, cutting himself off mid-syllable. The Lieutenant only allowed him one ‘fuck’ per case. He claimed it was ‘not heroic to swear’. 

The oak leaves swirled around Phoenix, as if caught in a mini-cyclone. But they were moving against the breeze. Fresh and supple leaves the same shade of green and the Fox’s tunic, dry autumn leaves the same shades of red and brown as the Fox’s fur and hoes. The cascade of oak leaves spiraled around Phoenix before traveling up into the air. 

“Meet me in the medieval exhibit at your Maxville museum if you decide to make a deal.” The voice of the Hooded Fox was heard, as if traveling on the wind. “We can discuss terms then.”

Phoenix was left standing on an open street, cars passing by, and wondering what the hell just happened.


	2. A Bargain Struck

“So, this guy said your Dad sent him?” Will asked as they walked into the museum lobby together. 

The Maxville History Museum did not charge an entry fee, but they did encourage donations. There was a transparent acrylic box just inside the door so that people could see just how much –or how little- was donated that day. Will reached into his pocket and dropped a $20 bill into the acrylic box. 

Warren had a job, but he was also paying for school and had consistently less money than Will –whom was a realtor and still living with his parents, and thus, had a higher income and fewer living expenses. Warren pulled two $1 bills and some random change from his pocket totaling $2.17, and slid it into the box. 

“He actually didn’t say Dad sent him.” Warren clarified. “He just said that he did what he wanted. But how else could he have known that I need to learn to hunt unless my Dad asked him to teach me? And instead of paying him, or my Dad compensating him in some other way, he expects me to do him a ‘favor’ in return.”

“That sounds super-sketchy.” Will announced. 

“I know, right! Standard villain dealing.” Nodded Warren. “He’s willing to help me, a hero, but only if, said hero, is willing to look the other way –if not outright commit a crime- for him.”

Will shook his head. “This sounds like bad news, man. Your Dad used to be an assassin. He killed people. What if this guy’s the same? What if he’s in town for a job and wants you to look the other way while he kills…” Will trailed off while he tried to think of a high profile target that was in town at the moment. “…The Mayor…?” Then remembered that there were plenty of people in Maxville that others with money might want dead, they did not have to be very publically known. “Or the Broker. Or Principal Powers. Or- what if it’s my Dad! What if this guy was hired to take out the Commander and he’s targeting you because you’re close to my family!”

Warren just gave him an unamused glare. “You know I’m not dumb enough to help a supervillain kill your Dad, right?”

Will waited to see if Warren was going to bring up Royal Pain again. It happened back in high school. It was six years ago by now. And yet, Warren vowed to never let the younger man live it down. The pyrokinetic even promised to somehow work it into his Best Man’s toast one day at Will’s far-off future wedding. 

The pause dragged on so long, in fact, that they made it to the gallery for the medieval exhibit. 

Warren yawned. 

Will sighed with relief. Thinking that, this time, Warren was not going to bring up Royal Pain. “So, why are you meeting him?”

Warren grinned an evil grin. “I figured agreeing to meet him in public was better than inviting him into a Secret Sanctum and letting him steal some of my Dad’s old weapons.”

There it was! There was the Royal Pain reference. Warren hadn’t forgotten. He was just waiting. 

“Oh, for the love of-!” Will threw his arms up in frustration. “I was fifteen!”

A few people milling about the exhibit looked up at them, shooting Will dirty glares for raising his voice. While museums never had any official quiet rules, they always –somehow- tended to be as silent as libraries. When someone disturbed that silence, it was almost the same at shouting across a library. 

Now it was Warren’s turn to sigh, his with exasperation. He massaged the sides of his head. He was so tired. He had been tired for days –weeks, actually. Being a full time superhero, full time student, and working part-time was just a bit much for him. All he wanted to do all day was take extra long naps and… eat. 

“Just… stand on the opposite side of the room and watch me out the corner of your eye.” He pleaded. That was the whole reason he asked his friend to come with him to this meeting. So that he had a witness if something went bad. And some super-strong, flying back-up in case things went very, very bad. 

“Gawd, you’re always so moody.” Will grumbled, moving away from Warren and making his way across the room. “Why am I even friends with you…” Grumble. Grumble. Grumble. 

Warren turned his attention to the crowd, looking for anyone who could possibly be the Hooded Fox from the previous night. There were several people who looked to be around the same height and general body-type. But not a single one of them was an anthropomorphic fox. He turned his attention to blending in, looking like any other normal, non-super powered citizen, whom had just come to get a bit of history. He turned his attention to the exhibits, his eyes only skimming over the illuminated manuscripts, or artifacts, and their information placards. Still watching the people around him in his peripheral vision. 

A fleet of small children on a field trip, escorted by an overly cheerful tour guide, and half a dozen exhausted looking teachers and volunteer parents. Students from Maxville U, trying to take notes, looking irritated by the children that occasionally disturbed the otherwise library-level quiet. Older retired people spending the day out. Nobody that really stood out to Warren that could be the Hooded Fox. 

He moved along the display cases. Making sure he didn’t look any different than anyone else there to take in a bit of history and feel cultured and educated. 

The next case he paused in front of featured a few Plantagenet coins, the placard in front of them informing Warren that they were minted in King’s Lynn, making them King John coins, which were apparently different from King Richard coins. Moving along the case, there was a fragments of a tapestry depicting a bard stumming a lute. The placard in front of that piece explained that it was Alan-a-Dale composing ‘the Phony King of England’ (a famous historical song that mocked King John I). Warren moved on to the next display case. 

A tall glass case standing just off the center of the room, displaying a bow –unstrung, obviously. 

A recurve bow. Warren knew that without having to read the information placard, his father taught him that much. Any bow where the ends curled outward away from the archer was a recurve bow. Made of English yew, the full length of the bow was inlayed with silver. Thin silver threads, almost as fine as human hair. The patterns swirling and interlocking with each other to form abstract illustrations. A fox, slinking through the forest, a person fleeing soldiers, the fox transforming into a fairy and chasing the soldiers away. A man in a hood stealing coins from collectors. The same hooded figure redistributing the coins to farmers and millers. 

Glancing down at the placard, Warren read that this was the ‘Sherwood Bow’ and was rumored to have belonged to the folk hero Robin Hood himself. This could not be confirmed, however, as ‘Robin Hood’ was often used as a stock name for thieves and highwaymen who wanted to conceal their identities. It was entirely possible that there never even was a real ‘Robin Hood’ to begin with. 

“Lovely, isn’t it.” 

Warren heard the voice before the man slid up beside him in front of the bow. The same voice as the Hooded Fox from the previous night. Slightly accented, like something from western Europe. He turned. The speaker was definitely not an anthropomorphic fox. So, it had to have been a very, very well made mask under his hood last night. 

Looking him up and down, Warren studied him. Not particularly tall, in fact, he was on the shorter side of average height. He was shorter than Warren was. Wearing brown slacks, and a beige shirt, under a forest green cardigan. He was dressed like the standard caricature of an academic. 

But his face and his hair did not quite match up with his clothing. The face was narrow, eyes and nose angled in a way that made him look almost vulpine even without that life-like fox mask. With high cheekbones and bushy eyebrows. His eyes were a green even more foresty than the color of his cardigan. In fact, they kinda reminded Warren of Layla’s eyes. Woodland eyes. Except, while Layla’s were full of empathy, kindness, and passion, this man’s eyes sparkled with pure, unrepentant mischief. All of it was topped by a mane of wild red hair. 

Not red like his mother’s hair was red, or the two streaks in his own hair were red. This was a more natural, earthy red. Again, like Layla’s. (And Warren hated that his mind kept comparing this guy to Layla.) But where Layla’s hair was straight, and almost always styled, tamed, and under control, this guy’s hair was a beast all its own. Just wavy in some places, outright curly in others, some coils sticking up in odd directions, some waves falling over his ears. Messy and all over the place. Noting like the neat and clean-cut figure he was below the neck. 

Warren blinked at him. This was not what he expected was under the hood. 

But the man was not looking at him. His eyes were on the bow in the display case. The Sherwood Bow. Those mischievous sparkling eyes gazing at it with something akin to longing. 

“Note how fine the silver work is.” He said. “As if made by the fae folk themselves.”

Warren was uninterested in the bow. “I’m here, Hooded Fox. What kind of ‘favor’ did you want from me in return for teaching me to hunt?”

“Not sure yet.” Answered the other, tapping his chin with a finger. “I don’t know what I’ll need from you.”

“I’m not going to agree to anything unless I know what I’m agree to.” Warren informed him. 

“That’s smart.” Nodded the Hooded Fox. He ran a hand through his wild mess of woodland-red curls. “Actually, that’s much smarter than the vast majority of people who’ve made deals with me. I’m not used to your kind being smart.”

Insulting the overall intelligence of superheroes, yup, this guy was definitely a supervillain. Warren also often heard his Dad insulting the overall intelligence of the hero community. He would often say that Flamebird and Phoenix were the only smart heroes on Earth. Begrudgingly, he did have to admit that some of his friends –Zach, the hero Highlighter- could be kinda dumb sometimes. They were not exactly smart. But that didn’t make them any less capable as heroes! The fact that supervillains constantly and consistently underestimated them like that was one of the reasons why the heroes constantly and consistently thwarted their schemes. 

“I’m not going to kill anyone for you.” Warren announced, keeping his voice low and glancing around to make sure no one in the exhibit was paying attention to them. “And I won’t look the other way if you’re here to kill someone. I will stop you.”

“Saddle-goose! You’re a dramatic one. Murder is not what I’m after.” The other assured him. 

“And I won’t commit crimes for you, either.” Warren continued. He was a hero and heroes did not break the law and commit crimes. There was a line between superhero and supervillain, a line that Warren was acutely aware of. Perhaps more aware of than the average hero. He would not cross that line. 

“’Crime’ as defined by your laws or mine?” Asked the Hooded Fox. 

“’Crime’ as defined by the law!” Warren snarled. 

The Hooded Fox rocked on the heels of his feet, twirling a coil of red hair around one finger. “Ambiguous wording. Excellent. Excellent. This is good for me.”

Warren just stared at him. There was nothing ambiguous about the law. It was the law! 

“You need not agree to a bargain with me at all.” The Hooded Fox reminded him. “I’m sure you can find someone else to teach you the skill you need to keep your cravings in check.” A pause for affect. “How are your cravings, by the way. Are they under control? I would assumed they are, but it’s always good to ask. Tell me, do you know what happens to you if you can’t get- …what you need?”

The memory of Hardwin Battle flashed through Warren’s mind. More of a mindless wight than a man. Skeletal thin, just skin stretched over bones. Yellow teeth and broken finger nails. Stalking the woods like an animal. Killing deer, and bears, and even innocent people. Ripping their chests open, breaking their ribs apart, and eating their hearts out. After so long, the old man became a monster. A literal, actual monster. Like something out of a horror movie. 

Warren did not want that to happen to him. 

Rocking on his feet again, the Hooded Fox smirked. Warren might not have actually said anything, but his answer was clear as day on his face. 

“I’m a hero.” He reminded the other man. “I won’t do anything a hero’s not supposed to do.”

“Those are terms I can agree to!” Nodded the Hooded Fox. He liked how ambiguous and open to interpretation they were. “As it so happens, I am not in this city for as nefarious a reason as you imagined. I just want some property returned to its rightful owner.”

“What property?” Warren asked. If it was something that was stolen, he could recover stolen property. It was a little different than what Phoenix usually did, but not very far outside of his realm of experience. He recovered drugs and money, and other evidence for the police all the time. 

“Personal property.” 

“Are you being cryptic on purpose?” It was a little hard for Warren not to get frustrated with this guy. He hadn’t given him a straight answer since they met. 

“Well, I’m sure not being cryptic by accident!” Laughed the Hooded Fox. 

Warren only scowled at him. 

The older man smiled at him, extending his hand. “I’ll teach you to hunt, and in return you’ll do a favor for me, and I won’t ask any service from you that a ‘hero’ is not supposed to perform.” 

Warren continued to glare at him skeptically. He did not like that this guy wasn’t telling him what he wanted. Not exactly. He said he wanted some personal property returned to its rightful owner. But he wouldn’t say what the property was or whom it belonged to. Every instinct he developed growing up a pariah of the super community screamed at him to not take the deal. 

But, Dad was supposed to have sent this guy and Dad wanted to make sure he could take care of himself and fend on his own. Dad wouldn’t intentionally put him in a compromising situation. But, Dad was also a supervillain and his judgment could not always be trusted. But where else was Warren going to learn to hunt in a major metropolitan city like Maxville? The local Scouts councils barely even went camping! (One time, when he was younger, on a camping trip with his parents, he saw a mini-van pull up to the site next to theirs and a gaggle of Scouts piled out. One of them exclaimed “ew, dirt!” as if in shock. Like they weren’t expecting there to be dirt in the hills.)

If Warren wanted to be able to get his own ‘meat’ and slake the cravings that went along with his second superpower, he needed to take the deal. 

Reluctantly, hesitating, Warren took the Hooded Fox’s offered hand. “Alright.” He said. “It’s a deal.”

“Bargain.” Corrected the Hooded Fox. “I prefer the term ‘bargain’.”


	3. Surprise Aptitude Test

They agreed on loosely defined terms for their bargain, but they did not agree on a time and place to meet up to begin training. 

The Hooded Fox was a villain –or possibly neutral, but definitely not a hero- and they were not well known for making appointments and showing up when they were expected. So, Warren assumed his new hunting teacher would show up at the most inconvenient time possible and whisk him away before he would have the opportunity to change from ‘Warren Peace’ into ‘Phoenix’. (This was a depressingly common occurrence in the super community when one super knew another super’s secret identity. Will did it to Warren at least twice last year and they were friends and cared about each other’s civilian lives.) 

With nothing else to do Warren went about his normal life. 

He got up in the morning. Brushed his teeth. Picked his mother’s discarded clothing from the bathroom floor and put it in the hamper. Went into the living room. Tripped over the cat. Picked up his mother’s discarded jacket and shoes, hung the jacket on the back of the door, placed the shoes on the shoe rack right when you walk in. Went into the kitchen. Got yelled at by the cat. Washed a dish from his mother’s midnight depression snacking. Cut a steak in half. Ate one half raw, then put the rest back in the refrigerator. Fed the cat. Started scrambling an omelet for his mother. 

Mara Peace shambled into the kitchen just as he was sliding her omelet with spinach and tomatoes onto a plate. 

Warren passed her her plate without saying anything. One did not get between Mara Peace and her breakfast. Not if they enjoyed having hands. 

As a general rule, fire supers were morning people. The sun was fire, so they rose with the sun. But Mara’s fire was dimmed, smothered, and almost gone out. Warren hadn’t seen her form live flame in years –not since his father was sentenced to multiple lives in prison- she could still control and use raw heat, but no visible fire. She was still an early riser. Mara got up with the sun, but she was sluggish in the morning. Not as chipper and energetic as Warren remembered her being when Dad was still around. 

Mara looked at the plate, noting that there was only one and that her son had not cooked anything for himself. 

He offered her a reassuring smile. A light staining on his teeth betraying that, yes, he ate. 

Taking the plate, Mara continued to glare at her son. “Did you have any vegetables with your raw flesh?”

“The beef was grass-fed.” Warren informed her. 

Mara was not amused. She stared him down. Actually, she stared him up because he was 6’2” (185 centimeters), and she was a misleading little 4’11” (151 centimeters), and she was not going to waste flying power just to meet him on eye-level to make sure he ate his vegetables. Warren was twenty-one, an adult, and perfectly capable of taking care of himself. 

He still crumpled under his mother’s stern gaze. “I will eat a vegetable with breakfast.”

“Good boy.” Mara nodded. 

She crossed the small kitchen. Leaned over the sink. Picked her omelet up with her bare hand. Reached for a bottle of Tobasco sauce and covered the egg in it, so much that the excess trickled into the sink. Then shoved the whole thing into her mouth. Mara Peace was many things, but dignified and elegant she was not. 

Opening the fridge back up, Warren selected a bag of baby carrots and began eating them like chips. He was not elegant either. 

When Mara was done, she dropped the plate in the sink with a loud clatter. Wiped her mouth. Then turned on the faucet to wash her hands. 

Just looking at her, one would never think she was ever married to a supervillain. 

“Hey, Mom,” Warren began, “Dad told you everything about him being a villain, right?”

Leaning her head into the sink, Mara drank straight from the tap. Classy. When she was done, she wiped her mouth again and pushed a lock of red hair behind her ear. “It was one of the earliest ground rules we set for our relationship. Yes.”

“Did Dad ever tell you about another villain he might have known?” He asked. “A Hooded Fox? Dresses mostly in green, like he just came from a Dungeons and Dragons game at a furry convention, speaks with some kind of accent, and has a weird superpower.”

“Honey, I’m gonna need you to remember that I’m not a millennial and I don’t know what a ‘furry convention’ is.” She told him. “But, no, aside from the accent and the weird superpower, none of that sounds familiar. Most of the people your father classified as ‘friends’ he met over seas, so they all had accents, and he had a habit of getting to know people with the strangest powers.”

“’Kay. Thanks.” That told him nothing. He put the bag of carrots back in the ‘fridge. “Anyway, gotta get to school. Please remember to drink lots of water, change your pajamas, and maybe go outside –even if it’s just the back yard.” 

To all these suggestions, Mara just gave him an unamused stare. He was –in part- responsible for her melancholy moods. Two years ago, Barron Battle had been out of prison. Temporarily escaped. A supervillain called Faultline created a cataclysmic earthquake that almost leveled Maxville and cracked open Max Pen (Maxville Penitentiary), the prison Battle was serving his sentence in. 

For a whole day, Battle was out. Reunited with his family. 

It was a crazy day. One that stretched late into the night and almost the next morning. A wild time of super fights, hero-villain team-ups, climatic battles, and new powers. During that time, Mara Peace –the hero known as Flamebird- was the happiest she had ever been in years. 

When it was all over, Faultline was dealt with, her minions captured, her earthquake machine destroyed, Mara asked Barron to run away with her. She had a backpack already ready. Filled with cash and passports. Passports for all three of them. Her, Battle, and Warren. She wanted them all to run away together. Their family whole. 

But Warren refused to go. He spent the last five years of his life, from the very first day of his freshman year at Sky High, trying to prove to the super community –and the world- that he was not a supervillain like his father. If he aided a fugitive and became a fugitive himself, Warren would be a supervillain. Choosing his friends and a life as a hero over his parents, Warren chose not to go with them. 

Battle understood that if Warren became a hero, and they ran, then they would never get to see him again. If they did cross path, Warren would have to arrest them. Battle did not want to put his son in that position. In addition to that, they had all just learned that Warren also inherited a power from his father’s side of the family. 

His fire he got from his mother. Barron Battle’s powers were instant healing, any wound or damage he sustained was repaired almost instantly. Even traumatic wounds. Bone remodeled, muscles knit back together, skin regenerated. All of it exactly the way it was before he was injured, no scars. Battle was immune to poisons, drugs had no effect on him, and he never got a cold past the age of eight. He wasn’t invulnerable, he just had semi-perfect health. Since Warren never displayed any powers like that, both his parents just assumed that fire was his only power and he didn’t get anything from the Battle side. 

But, Battle’s second power was also revival from death. He could be killed. But he did not stay dead. Twelve years ago when he was originally subdued and arrested by the Commander and Jetstream, that was how they finally managed to defeat him. The Commander stabbed Battle through the heart with a broken segment of rebar and killed him. When he revived from that, Jetstream was so shocked and scared that she stabbed him six more times, killing him again. 

They discovered that Warren inherited the same power. 

They discovered it in the worse way possible, too. 

Faultline was defeated, but not immobilized. In a rage over her defeat, she picked up Barron Battle’s own weapon which he dropped and stabbed Warren in the back. Impaling him so deep, the blade came out his chest. Clean through him. Back to front, and right though his heart. Warren died. His parents, his friends, and everyone one else there watched him die. 

Then watched him come back. 

A superpower like that was hard to handle. Both for the person that had the power, and their close friends and family. Warren would need guidance and understanding. For that reason, Battle couldn’t go on the run. He needed to stay close, where he could see his son. Where they could talk. Ever if they were only allowed to talk for two hours every other week. 

Battle turned himself in. Allowed himself to be arrested and returned to Max Pen. 

And Mara still hadn’t fully forgiven Warren for that. 

Bending down, she picked up the cat and hugged it with more affection than she had hugged her own son with in the past two years. “Don’t tell me what to do on my days off, Warren.” 

Mara Peace was retired from being Flamebird. She did not go out and play the superhero anymore. On days when she was off from her civilian job, she had two modes, two ways that she spent her time. Self-destructive and erratic outings that usually began at one of Maxville’s dirtier dive-bars and ended in Warren (or Phoenix) being called to bring her home. Or else she did not leave the house at all, stayed in her pajamas all day, made a mess of the kitchen, the living room, or any other space she used, then fell back into bed still in the same pajamas she never changed out of. 

Warren did not like ether way she spent her time.

“Dad would want you to take care of yourself.” Warren tried to reason with her. 

“It’s easy to say what your father would or wouldn’t want when he’s not here to speak for himself.” On her last visit to Max Pen, Barron flat out told her to her face, ‘Mara, I’m worried about you, you need to take better care of yourself.’ “Don’t tell me what your father would or wouldn’t want!”

Realizing that this was not the kind of discussion where he could get her to see reason, Warren dropped the subject. “Have a good day, Mom.”

He grabbed his backpack, and left. He needed to leave anyway or else he would be late for culinary school. 

Heading out from his house, Warren saw a red fox across the street. 

Maxville Adjacent had been getting a lot of wild animals in the past two years. Ever since the earthquake. The quake caused a massive landslide in the North Hills that overlooked Max Adj. A landslide that would have buried the town and killed hundreds of people and rendered thousands homeless. But Flamebird stopped the landslide. She used the raw heat of her superpower to super-heat the landscape and transform the earth into dark obsidian. She saved Max Adj and everyone who lived there, but also destroyed the hills. Killed countless animals and rendered more homeless. 

Ever since then, wild animals had been coming down from the hills. Most often looking for food. Occasionally looking for shelter to breed and have their young. 

Deer and rabbits were most common. But they also got coyotes. One time a bear. Warren had never seen a red fox before. He didn’t think they were native to the area. 

“Shoo!” He called to the fox across the street. “Before someone calls animal control on you.”

The fox just gave him an unconcerned stare. Looking down it’s long red snout at him. Almost as if calling a bluff. If Warren didn’t know any better, he would have thought the fox actually understood him. 

“Fine. Don’t leave.” He said to the fox. “Just don’t complain when animal control captures you and carts you away.”

He left to catch his bus. He did have school to get to after all. 

…

Class was uneventful. It was Warren’s third year of culinary school and he was getting into more advanced cooking. One more year and he would earn his associates degree in culinary arts. In fact, in this one aspect of his life, nothing had gone wrong yet –aside from the occasional falling asleep in front of a burning stove. That made him more suspicious and warry, because nothing else in his life had ever gone as smoothly. 

Since he knew he made a bargain with a supervillain, he was expect his school life to go very wrong very soon. Warren was expecting the Hooded Fox to burst into his class at any second, cause a scene that no one would understand, and get him expelled from the program. 

He was tense and on edge all day. Jumping at every loud noise and jerking at every movement out the corner of his eye. Other students at the work stations closest to him noticed and shot him odd or concerned looks every time he did. By now they were used to Warren Peace being a half-asleep savant. They were not used to him being an absolute spaz. 

But nothing happened in class. 

In fact, nothing happened at school at all. 

Which only put Warren more on edge. He kept looking over his shoulder at the bus stop. He examined the faces of everyone on the bus, and everyone getting on at the stops leading up to his destination. None of them resembled the wild-haired man that met him at the museum the other day. 

Warren had an uneventful day all the way back home. 

He was starting to wonder if maybe the Hooded Fox was going to renege on their bargain. 

Then he actually got home. 

Mom was not inside the house, and Warren’s first thought was concern that his mother had decided to go to another bar and get into a fight. He checked his phone for notifications, but there were none. Then he checked his Red Phone to see if Phoenix had to come collect Flamebird from anywhere. The Red Phone was also –blissfully- empty of notifications. His next thought after that was that the Hooded Fox had come to the house looking for him, but found his mother instead. 

“Mom!?” Warren shouted in a sudden panic. “Mom!?”

He ran from room to room. There weren’t many. Their house was small. 

His mother’s room was a tumbled mess, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. Mom’s room was always a tumbled mess. Warren did not like the word ‘slob’, but Mara Peace was definitely not ‘neat’. The living room was mostly clear, Warren tried to keep it fairly clean. Mom’s jacket was still hunt on the door right where he put it that morning, but her quick-grab-n-go flip-flops were gone from the shoe rack. That was the only indication that Mom was not inside. 

But there were no real evidence of a fight. No tossed furniture or broken windows. No burn marks from the use of fire powers. If something had happened to Mom, it was not a fight. 

Warren sprinted into the back yard just to make sure. “Mom!?”

“Shush, Warren, you’ll scare him.” Mom was just fine. 

Mara was crouched in the dirt of their back yard, still in her pajamas, and petting the same wild fox of earlier that morning. 

Their cat, Soot, was pacing behind her, glaring jealously at the fox. How dare this- this canid steal his human! Soot ran up to Warren and meowed, begging the other human to make the dumb wild mutt go away. This was his territory! In that moment, Warren knew two things: 1, his mother was fine and he overreacted, and 2, Soot was going to pee in the bathtub tonight to express his displeasure. 

“Mom, that is a wild animal.” He said, no moving for fear of spooking the fox. In addition to not teaching him how to hunt, Dad also never taught him how to behave around wild animals. 

“Aw… he’s a sweetie.” Mara scratched the fox behind the ears and along the side of the face. 

It made a series of chirps and chortles to express its enjoyment. Mara hadn’t clipped her nails in a while and she gave great scratchies. 

“That is a wild animal!” Warren said again. He bent down to pick up Soot. The cat was a quarter the fox’s size. If the thing decided he did not want pets and was hungry instead, he could rip the small housecat to shreds. Several families on their block had already lost beloved pets to the coyotes that came down from the hills. “It could eat Soot!”

“Not if he doesn’t wanna get barbecued, he won’t!” Mara smiled. It sounded like a cute little tease. But she was the woman who glassed the entire North Hills. She blew a man’s hand all the way off. She was married to a supervillain with a high body-count behind his name and had almost no problems with it. If this wild animal threatened her family, she would kill it. Without hesitation. 

For some reason, Warren suddenly felt more concerned for the fox. 

“Who’s a handsome fluffy little man…” She cooed at it. 

In Warren’s arms, Soot hissed down at the fox. ‘Stop stealing my humans, you stinky bastard!’

Almost as if the fox understood what the cat was communicating, the animal looked up. Eyes narrowing at the housecat in Warren’s arms. 

Moving quickly –much more quickly than a normal fox could move- it ducked around Mara and jumped at Warren, jaws open. Before he even knew what was happening, the fox had plucked the small housecat from his arms and was dashing out of the yard to the open street. Soot hanging from its mouth, the teeth closed on the scruff of his neck, Soot’s hind feet tucked up under him, and tail curled between them. 

Warren made a very un-heroic sound. 

Mara snarled a very, very villainish snarl. 

She recovered and reacted before Warren did. Springing into the air and flying after the fox. She threw her arm out, fingers spread, the exact same position she showed him when she was teaching him how to throw fireballs. She was trying to blast the fox. But Mara Peace hadn’t conjured real fire in over ten years. The only thing that came out of her hand was a couple heat waves. 

Sluggishly, Warren started sprinting after the fox. “Don’t worry! I’ll save Soot!”

The fox had a head start on him and was moving quickly. It turned a corner and Warren lost sight of it. 

He stood there on the corner, looking both directions and breathing hard. Not because he’d been running, but because he was worried about his cat. Warren had always lived with a cat. Mom always kept a cat. He didn’t know how to live without a cat. He didn’t know what he would do if something happened to that cat. 

And ripped to shreds by a wild animal was not how he wanted his cat to go. To be scared and alone, not knowing what was going on. That was no way for a beloved member of the family to go! 

Heart in his throat, he scrutinized the street. The sidewalk. The trees. People’s yards. Anything his eyes could see. Looking for paw prints in the grass, disturbed leaves, rolling gravel, splash marks from the puddles in the gutters. The fox was out of sight and Warren didn’t know how to track it. Dad never taught him how to track! Why didn’t Dad ever teach him how to track!? Why couldn’t Dad ever teach him how to track down a vision wild animal that had captured their beloved family pet and was going to eat the poor bastard alive. 

The wind changed and Warren got a whiff of the musky scent of fox. Thick and somehow worse than a wet dog. Fox might look cute but they smelled terrible! 

If he could only detect the smell after the wind changed, then the fox had to be upwind of him. Warren began sprinting off in the direction the wind was coming from. 

He turned another corner and this time there were tracks. A splashed puddle in the gutter, and wet paw prints leading across the street. 

Warren crossed the street. 

There was a bent blade of grass in someone’s yard. The sand of their water-conservation front yard disturbed. Deep welts in the sand where something with tiny feet had stepped. Spread too far apart to be a human toddler. The spacing was more like something on four legs. Four legs like a fox. 

Ignoring all the trespassing laws they made him study in his ‘legality of heroism’ class at Sky High, Warren hopped the neighbor’s fence, and sprinted around their house from the front yard to the back yard. 

But there was no fox clutching his cat in its jaws. Warren still hadn’t caught up to the fox. 

A plank was missing from the backyard fence all the way against the far side of the property line. The gap just big enough for a fox carrying prey to get through. Getting a running start, Warren jumped that fence too. 

His feet landed in dry dusty earth. The impact kicking up a cloud of dirt that smelled of ash. Warren looked up ahead of him. 

Black hills that shone like black glass, reflecting the light of the afternoon sun. The North Hills. 

Warren started running again. 

And immediately slipped the moment his boot tread touched the obsidian surface. Apparently the soles couldn’t get any traction on the smooth surface. He cast a thought back to the boots of his Phoenix costume. They were designed for traction. ‘All terrain tactical boots’. But the boots were all the way back at the house, in his backpack with the rest of his Phoenix costume. He could not go back and get them. He needed to rescue Soot now! It might have already been too late!

A sound cut up from Warren’s throat. A sound that later when he would tell this story was –not- a sob. He had lost the fox’s trail again and he couldn’t even walk on these damn glass kills right. Never mind run. He couldn’t save Soot. He was going to lose another member of his family. 

“You’re right, he is very dramatic.” Said a voice off to his side. A voice that Warren was quickly becoming familiar with. Male and slightly accented, as if from Western Europe. 

Startled, Warren spun around. Turning to the side. Unbalancing himself and falling ass-flat on the obsidian glass. 

He glared up at the Hooded Fox. 

Wearing the same forest green tunic and brown hoes, elf-boots from the first night they met. His supervillain costume. But the hood was thrown back and Warren could see his face. High cheekbones and long pointed face, crowned by a wild mane of woodland-red curls. 

He was holding Soot in his arms. 

The cat didn’t seem to have a mart on him. Completely unharmed. Not even all that scared. In fact, Soot was purring as the Hooded Fox stroked the cat under the chin. 

“You didn’t do as poorly as I thought you would.” Announced the Hooded Fox. “I guess having a Son of Cernunnos as a father is good for something.”

“What?” Warren blinked at him. He inexplicably felt like he was having a stroke. He didn’t understand what the other man just said. 

“Smertrios?” Amended the Hooded Fox. “Work with me here, it’s not my pantheon.” 

Still not understanding, it was all Warren could do to just stare at the older man. “What?”

Hooded Fox leaned his head down, talking to the cat in his arms again. “And he’s a little slow. You were right about that too.” He said to the cat. “I should ask people’s animal companions for insider information more often. What was he like when he was kitten?” 

Warren was 12 when Soot joined the family. 

Soot one normal mew, followed by a series of the caterwauls he used when he was in distress, then ended with one stand-alone meow to punctuate the statement. 

“A cry-baby, huh.” Nodded the Hooded Fox. “That makes sense.”

“Do you expect me to believe you’re talking to my cat.” Warren growled. “Stop hiding behind my animal and give him back to me!”

“Ooh, he’s mad.” The other man muttered to the cat. “Better go to him before he starts throwing fire at me.”

He set the cat on the ground and Soot trotted over the Warren, rubbing against his legs as if he were just asking to be fed –which he probably was. 

Warren bent down and picked him up, cuddling the cat close to his chest and breathing in his dusky kitty scent. Cats always smelled so much better than dogs! And the flea medication Mom bought for him always left a gentle floral scent that made the cat smell even better! 

“You didn’t do as poorly as I thought you would.” The Hooded Fox began again. “You caught the scent on the wind and that was not something I was expecting you to be able to pick up. But, you completely missed the trail of bent grass I left leading from the corner where you first lost me. You only noticed disturbed earth, not disturbed foliage. You’re not bad, but we’ve still got a lot of work to do.”

Looking up from his cat, Warren blinked at the other man again. “Are you telling me you were that fox?”

“I would have assumed that was obvious.” He shrugged. 

“So, you’re a shape shifter.” He glared. 

“Yes.” Nodded the Hooded Fox. 

“And you can talk to animals?”

“Yes.” He nodded again. 

“And you can do that weird turning into the wind and flying away thing.” That was the one Warren found the most unsettling. He went to school with kids that had all sorts of weird powers, but nothing like that. 

“Yes.” He nodded a third time, seemingly enjoying this back-and-forth they were doing. 

“How many powers do you have?” Warren did not find it enjoyable. He found the Hooded Fox and all his strange powers unsettling and concerning. 

The Hooded Fox shrugged. “You would define them as several different powers. I just call them… natural.”

Warren glared at him. He was not amused, and even less at ease. 

Brushing cat hair off his tunic, the Hooded Fox pulled his hood up over his head. “As I understand it, you have both your studies and work tomorrow. Meet me up in the mountains after they release you from your labor tomorrow. The place you call Bedlam Unincorporated. We’ll begin your real training then.”

Warren was about to object. After a full day of both school and work he would be exhausted. That was not the time he wanted to be traipsing through the woods with an over-powered super he did not know and did not trust. He would be so tired, and that would make him so… hungry… 

But, before he could object, the Hooded Fox vanished. Bursting into a cascade of leaves again. Oak leaven in shades of red, brown and green. Spiraling on a cyclone of breeze that moved against the wind, not with it. 

Once again, Warren was left standing there wondering what the –he was still saving his one ‘fuck’- just happened. 

Soot meowed and squirmed in his arms. 

Cuddling the cat closer, Warren made his way back home. 

He needed to mentally prepare and steal himself. This was going to be some odd training.


	4. First Night Out

Warren yawned as he finished unloading the final dishwasher load of the night. All the plates and glasses put away, arranged in neat acrylic crates, upside down so that moisture couldn’t collect in them. All the cook wear sanitized and sparkling. 

The server had already been sent home for the night. It was just Warren, Xinyi, and her husband –and they both knew his identity as Phoenix. 

Last year –in full costume as Phoenix- he burst into the kitchen to protect the couple against a member of the mob that was trying to extort protection money from the restaurant. His mask covered his face, but the moment he opened his mouth and spoke in Chinese, they recognized him by his accent. As Xinyi said, they had been putting up with his American accent for years. It was dumb for him to assume they wouldn’t recognize him just because they couldn’t see his eyes. 

So, he did not mind changing from his regular work cloths into his Phoenix costume in the breakroom after his shift. 

“Bùyào zài bèi cì shāng.” (Don’t get stabbed again.) Xinyi called to him as he left. 

“Wǒ bù huì.” (I won’t.) Phoenix called back to her as he left. Of course, that was a guarantee he could not give. But at least he could promise that he wouldn’t die!

The Lieutenant was waiting for him in the parking lot outside. Hovering above the ground, dressed in white, blue, and red –no cape. He was just going to be Phoenix’s ride up to Bedlam. The Hooded Fox agreed to teach Phoenix, not the Lieutenant. Besides, the skills the Hooded Fox was teaching were not skills the Lieutenant had a use for. 

He scooped Phoenix up in his arms and they were airborne in moments. 

Wind whipping their hair. The city shrinking beneath them. The Lieutenant was the son of Jetstream, a super with the power of super-sonic flight. He could fly fast enough to break the sound barrier. But he did not fly that fast when he was carrying a passenger. In his freshman year of high school, when they discovered that he inherited his mother’s power as well as his father’s, Jetstream stepped in real quick to teach her son the nuances of super-speed flight. You couldn’t just zoom around at the speed of sound if you were carrying a person. Best case scenario, they got motion sick and vomited all over. Worst case scenario… something much, much worse… 

So, it took them several minutes to get up into the mountains.

“He said ‘Bedlam’ right? Not the murder cabin.” The Lieutenant shouted to be heard over the wind, wanting to clarify their destination before he landed. 

“He said Bedlam.” Phoenix confirmed. “I hope he doesn’t know about the murder cabin!”

The ‘murder cabin’ referred to Barron Battle’s childhood home. A property that Phoenix owned, up in the mountains above Bedlam Unincorporated. There wasn’t even a cabin there anymore. For the past year and a half, it had been vacant land, the remnants of the original house being burned down and swept away. The team was planning to build a base up there. A sort of Sanctum for all of them to share. But none of them had either time or money to start a large construction project in a remote location, so at the moment it remained vacant land. It was called the ‘murder cabin’ because when Barron Battle was seventeen, he killed his father and buried the old bastard somewhere on the property. 

He didn’t stay dead, of course. 

In fact, tracking down, finding, and capturing the undead Hardwin Battle was one of the many reasons that Phoenix needed to learn hunting and tracking. Hardwin was last seen in these woods. That was over a year ago. But he seemed to have vanished without a trace. That was a fact more concerning than him being risen from the grave and eating people and things indiscriminately.

“So, you want me to just drop you in the middle of town and make a scene, or… what…?” Asked the Lieutenant. 

“It’s after eleven.” Phoenix reminded him. “I guarantee you, the only person who’ll be left awake will be Sherriff Law. Just drop me anywhere.” 

“Okay…” 

Coming in for a landing, the Lieutenant slowed down long enough to lower Phoenix down in the middle of town. 

The ‘middle of town’ was one street, with the school and church on one side of the street, and the police station-court house on the other side. 

It was so quiet. 

Coming from a big city like Maxville, that never slept and had people out on the street at all hours, the kind of dead-silence of a small town at night, when literally every resident was asleep, was eerie and unsettling. Neither of them particularly liked coming to Bedlam at night. During the day, it was a ‘cute and quaint small town’. Once the sun went down it was Silent Hill. 

“You wanna stop off at the police station-court house and see if the Sheriff is in and say ‘hi’.” Asked the Lieutenant. 

Sheriff Darryl Law was the only person that might possibly still be awake and up this late. Phoenix and the Lieutenant first met the small town Sheriff two years ago when they came up to Bedlam to tear down the old Battle cabin in preparation for building their shared base. But then they discovered that something in the woods was killing things, both animals and people, and the heroes had to step in and stop it! Sheriff Law helped them by giving them access to his own investigation and case files. 

In the end, the killings stopped. But not because of anything either the Lieutenant or Phoenix did. The creature just up and vanished. Without a trace. No one knew where it went. Phoenix found the sudden and inexplicable cessation of killings particularly concerning because the ‘creature’ was actually his paternal grandfather, Hardwin Battle, (the Lieutenant did not know that part) and he wanted to know where his grandfather had gone and why. 

But that was two years ago. 

Sheriff Law didn’t spend many long nights at the station anymore. There just weren’t difficult cases that required long nights up here in this small town. 

Phoenix shook his head. “Even if he were in, I wouldn’t want to get him tangled up with the Hooded Fox. I still don’t even know what kind of supervillain the Hooded Fox is.”

He certainly didn’t seem like the ‘take over the world’ type. 

Then again, not many supervillains actually wanted to take over the world. Those were just the most famous ones. Most supervillains just wanted to make large sums of money without having to put in much work for it. But the Hooded Fox didn’t really seem like that type either. He could be one of the ‘villainy for fun’ types. That seemed to fit with his overall attitude thus far. But, there were so many other ways for a supervillain to have fun than tormenting a single superhero that he was also supposed to be teaching a skill to. 

Maybe the Hooded Fox wasn’t a supervillain. Maybe he was a neutral after all. Dad had plenty of neutral friends too. 

“Alright, well… will you need me to pick you up in the morning?” Asked the Lieutenant, hovering as if he were about to leave.

Phoenix shook his head. “Donno how long this is gonna take.” He admitted. He also wasn’t sure if the Hooded Fox might decide to betray him and just kill him outright. Take out the hero while his guard was done. That was a villain thing to do. Sure, he would make a life-long enemy of Barron Battle, but what could he do? He was locked up in prison for more than one of his lives! “I’ll call you on your Red Phone if I need you.”

“Okay… if you’re sure…” It seemed like the Lieutenant did not want to leave his friend alone with a villain they did not know. 

“Stronghold, just go.” Phoenix had to snarl. 

The Lieutenant shrugged. Sometimes Phoenix was moody and irritable just to be moody and irritable. Let his spend the night running around a small town, or the woods, or the whole mountain with a supervillain. Served him right. The Lieutenant shot off into the air, leaving Phoenix alone on the street. 

He looked around, turning in a wide circle. 

Then crossed his arms over his chest. 

“I swear, if this coot stands me up…” He muttered to the darkness, not quite show how to end his threat. 

Then, a movement caught his eyes. Something slinking around the school building. 

At first, Phoenix thought it was a fox. Down on all fours, moving quickly, but keeping low to the ground. But then he saw the figure straighten, standing up on two legs. What he thought was a tail shortened into the hem of a tunic. What he thought were ears stretched over the head into a hood. Instead of paws it wore elf-boots. Instead of claws it had fingers. And held in its hands was some kind of package. A manila envelope stuffed so full it looked thick and almost round. 

Marching across the street, Phoenix went right up to the hooded figure. 

It was the Hooded Fox. That long vulpine snout with its whiskers and wet black nose were unmistakable. 

“What are you doing?” Phoenix demanded. 

Not even breaking his step or interrupting his movement, the Hooded Fox slipped the over-stuffed envelope into the building’s mail slot. Then shrugged. “Just redistributing some wealth.” He answered. “It’s sort of a hobby of mine.”

“What do you mean?” Phoenix pressed he did not trust this Hooded Fox. “What was in that package?”

“Just some money.” Shrugged the Fox. “I happened to acquire some from someone who had much too much to spare, and I thought –since this is a poor town and we’d be in the area anyway- might as well see that it would make it to a place that would make better use of it.”

Phoenix looked up at the building they were standing next to. The school. Schools were notoriously underfunded as a general rule. But Bedlam Unincorporated did not have very much outside revenue coming in. Lots of things in this town were under-funded, the school probably more than others. 

“So that’s the kind of supervillain you are.” Phoenix concluded. “A thief who justifies their thievery by giving some away to the less fortunate. Like some modern-day Robin Hood.”

That long vulpine snout parted in a very human grin. Displaying sharp white teeth with elongated canines and fangs. “Not ‘like some’.”

“You know Robin Hood wasn’t real, right?” Phoenix pressed. “At the museum, it said that was just a stock name used by thieves and bandits.”

The Fox gave an amused little chuckle. “That’s because ‘Robin Hood’ is not a True Name.”

Behind his mask, Phoenix raised one eyebrow. There was an odd amount of emphasis on those last two words. As if the Hooded Fox were pronouncing them with capital letters. But he chose to ignore it. That last thing he wanted was to get into another string of cryptic and frustrating Q & A. It was late and he was tired. He had a full day of work and school, it was dark out, and fire supers rose and fell with the sun. Phoenix just wanted to go home and get some rest. 

“I’m here, Hooded Fox.” He growled. “Are we gonna do this, or what?”

“So grumpy.” The Fox teased. “Are you always like this, or do I bring it out in you?”

Phoenix only groaned. 

The Fox gave another chuckle. “Oh, alright, alright. I’ll go easy on you. You are, after all, only human.” He turned from the buildings and beckoned for Phoenix to follow. “Come little child.”

“I’m not a child.” He grumbled. He was, in fact, twenty-one. Never mind the fact that he was still in school and still living with his mother. Legally, he was an adult. 

But he followed the Hooded Fox anyway. 

The mysterious super lead Phoenix around the back of the school. For half a moment, it seemed like they were in the woods already. Passing between old trees with thick branches and foliage that almost blocked out the moonlight. But then they were passing through the back yard of a private home, around the side of a house, then out onto another road. The Hooded Fox took out another fat, tightly packed, manila envelope and slipped it in the roadside mailbox. 

He did this with the next house –half a mile up the road. 

He did it with every house they passed. 

Phoenix didn’t even know where he was pulling all the envelopes from. The Hooded Fox didn’t seem to have any pockets in his costume. Just one leather pouch suspended from his belt. A pouch that looked just barely big enough to hold one envelope if it was only a quarter as full and folded in half. Phoenix watched him pull out half a dozen of the cash-filled envelopes. So, either that leather pouch was some new highly advanced super-tech, or else opening up a portal to hammer space like a cartoon character was another one of the Hooded Fox’s superpowers. 

Finally, they ran out of street, and they ran out of houses. 

The paved asphalt of the street cracking and crumbling into a dirt road. The dirt road leading up into the woods, and turning into a narrow path. The path being swallowed up by the trees until it there was nothing to follow or navigate at all. 

Phoenix already felt lost. 

He trudged after the fox. Leaves, or twigs, or whatever it was that covered a forest floor crunching under his boots. Phoenix would only imagine what he was stepping on. It sounded crisp. 

Eventually, the Hooded Fox stopped. In the dark, Phoenix almost smacked into his back. The fox sighed, hood swaying in the dark as he shook his head. 

“I’m going to have to teach you how to walk before I can teach you to hunt.” He announced. 

Phoenix just glared at him through the whited out lenses of his mask. He lifted one hand and lit it on fire to create enough light to see the other man’s face better. “What?” He demanded, insulted. “I can walk!”

“Loudly.” Announced the fox. “The whole wood could hear you tromping around. Were you raised in a barn?”

No. He was raised by a super who could fly in addition to throwing fire around. In the early years, (the years in which Phoenix would have been learning to walk), Mara Peace’s feet barely touched the ground. What would a flying know about heavy stepping?

Phoenix only continued to glare. 

The fox sighed again. “Tonight, we’ll work on your walking.” He announced. “When you can sneak up on me without me hearing, then we will begin real hunting.”

Closing the space between them, the fox crouched down. Examining Phoenix’s boots, how he carried himself, where his weight was distributed. He stroked the whiskers of his snout and made a ‘Hmm…’ sound, like an old Kung Fu master from a poorly dubbed 80s martial arts movie. 

It made Phoenix feel uncomfortable, and he had to resist the urge to step back. 

“Walk for me.” Commanded the fox. 

“What?” Asked Phoenix. 

“Walk for me a little bit, and I shall tell you what you’re doing wrong.” The Hooded Fox elaborated. 

Suppressing a sigh, Phoenix took a few steps to the side, around the fox still kneeling on the ground. Then marched a couple paces forward. With every movement, the underbrush around them was disturbed. Low hanging leaves rubbing against his boots, or each other, and making a susurrus of noise. Rocks and pebbles shifting and grinding together. Twigs snapping loudly. Phoenix created a cacophony of sound when he moved. 

The Hooded Fox shook his head in disgust. Too much noise. 

“You’re a very angry stepper.” He announced. “You stomp your feet when you walk. Like you’re mad about everything.”

Phoenix frowned. This was an assessment he’d heard more than once. 

“And your shoes are all wrong.” Continued the fox, pointedly ignoring Phoenix’s obvious displeasure at his –very accurate- assessments. “The tread is thick and gives good traction on paved streets or rooftops. It’s heavy, good for delivering a kick or taking a kick. But these are city boots. The thick tread doesn’t bend much, it’s still and doesn’t form around what’s under it. That’s why you’re breaking every root you step on. They’re so heavy you sink into the soil, and disturb everything they touch. You need something more like this.”

The Hooded Fox lifted his own leg, pointing his foot at Phoenix.

He examined the older man’s shoe. An elf-style short-boot. With a pointed toe and curled cuff. It was had to see exact detail in the dim light of Phoenix’s fire. But it looked like it was made from leather like Phoenix’s own boots were. But a softer leather. Not cow hide, more like deer skin. Lighter and softer. Sewn together with small seems. It had no tread at all. Just a couple short laces to hold it on. More of a leather sock than an actual boot. 

“I’m not wearing elf-boots.” Phoenix declared. 

“Elf?” It couldn’t be seen on account of the hood, but Phoenix could practically hear the fox blinking. “Do I look Norse to you?”

Phoenix had no idea what to say to that, so he said nothing. 

“You’ll have to change your footwear before we hunt for real.” Continued the fox. “But for now, try walking again, only step lighter this time.”

Feeling immensely stupid, Phoenix did as he was told. Slowing his motions down and exaggerating every movement, hoping that just watching him made the Hooded Fox feel as stupid as he did. Lifting one leg, knee bent, extending the foot out, then slowly lowering back down to the ground. 

There was less rustling of underbrush. No susurrus of leaves moving against leaves. The slow motion succeeded in that. But his step was still heavy, and snapped roots and twigs with loud pops when his full weight was rested on it. 

The Hooded Fox sighed. 

Phoenix groaned. 

“You have to feel what’s under you before you put your foot down.” The fox informed him. 

“How am I supposed to ‘feel’ the ground through my shoe?” Phoenix demanded. 

“Again, a change in footwear would make that easier.” Reminded the fox. “But, even through thick treads like that, you can still feel something! Haven’t you been walking on a sidewalk and felt that one cement panel is higher than the other? Or on a roof where the sheetings have two different textures? Or in a subway with some of the piping exposed? You can still feel what you’re walking on thorough your boots. Don’t be dumb. Try again, and this time, if you feel something uneven that might snap under your weight, step to the side of it.”

Wanting nothing more than to just get this over with so that he could go home and rest, Phoenix lifted his foot again. This time, when he put it down slowly, he shuffled the tread over the ground until he felt something flat enough to not be roots or twigs. When he rested the rest of his weight, there was no snapping or popping sounds.

“Wonderful.” Praised the Hooded Fox. “Now, can you do that every time you take a step? And do it fast enough to actually go somewhere.”

A low growling sound escaped Phoenix’s throat. A sound of deep irritation, bordering on feral. It was a sound he heard his father make multiple times when having to deal with the Commander. 

“Don’t growl at me.” The fox bopped Phoenix on the nose. “This is all stuff your father should have taught you when you were younger.” 

“Well, he didn’t!” Phoenix snapped. 

“I know.” The Hooded Fox replied calmly. “That’s why I’m here in the first place.”

“I didn’t ask you to teach me this.” Phoenix reminded him. 

“That is technically true.” Nodded the fox. His hood falling lower over his anthropomorphic muzzle with the motion. 

Phoenix did not ask him to teach him –anything. The words ‘will you teach me?’ or ‘can you teach me’ never passed the other man’s lips. 

“But I do what I want.” The Hooded fox reminded him. “And what I want is to do a favor for you, so that you’ll owe a favor to me.”


End file.
